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Image Schemata in Allen Ginsberg's Poems: a Cognitive Stylistic Study

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Image Schemata in Allen Ginsberg's Poems: a Cognitive Stylistic Study International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 9, Issue 2, 2019 Image Schemata in Allen Ginsberg's Poems: A Cognitive Stylistic Study Dunya Muhammed Miqdad Ijama, Inas Haider Kazemb, a,bUniversity of Babylon, College of Education for Human Sciences, Department of English, Email: [email protected], [email protected] This research aims to cognitive stylistically analyse the types of image schemata in one of American postmodern Beat poets, Allen Ginsberg’s three different poems; with themes of sadness, madness, and death. It aims at finding out the most frequent type of image schemata that is used by Ginsberg, therefore classifying the poetic devices that are used. The researchers follow Johnson (1987), Pena (1999), and Croft and Cruse (2004) as models for analysis. Key words: Cognitive stylistic, image schemata, types of image schemata, Beat generation, Allen Ginsberg. Introduction Cognitive Stylistics It is a branch in stylistics which itself is a branch of cognitive linguistics that is related to cognitive poetics (West, 2013). It begins in the 1970s in apposition to earlier structural and generative approaches to language description (Ponterotto, 2014). Cognitive Stylistics deals with the cognitive theory of linguistics and cognitive psychology of reading. Stockwell (2002) asserts that cognitive stylistics looks at people as cognitive human beings who rely on their background knowledge and experience to understand literary texts. It offers a means for the reader to have a clear view of the text, context, circumstances, uses, knowledge, and beliefs. Image Schemata It is a concept in cognitive stylistics which springs from psychology and artificial intelligence. It refers to cognitive structures which offers facts about our understanding of generic entities, events, and situations (Johnson,1987). Image schemata are embodied and the pre-conceptual structures are found in human repeated bodily movements through space, perceptual interactions and ways of manipulating objects (lakoff, 1993:202). Image schemata 41 International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 9, Issue 2, 2019 are not understood as merely mental or bodily movements; they are body-mind links (Dewey, 1958). Types of Image Schemata Container Image Schema This type arises from physical experiences. For example, our bodies can be viewed either as: i) containers, where our bodies are viewed similar to three-dimensional containers where we can breathe air, eat food, and drink water; or, ii) objects in containers such as rooms, houses, or buildings (Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987; and Krzeszowski 1993). Body parts are regarded as containers such as body, mind, and chest. Johnson (ibid) and Lakoff (ibid) classify the container schema into three structural elements: 1. an interior which is the area within the boundary, 2. a boundary, and 3. an exterior, the area outside the boundary. Path Image schema It is part of our daily experience of going along a path to reach a destination through passing a series of locations that will make up a path that we go through. Accordingly, the path image schema refers to the movement of an entity from one location to another and passing along a series of neighbouring locations (Johnson, 1987 and Lakoff,1987). They also give the structure of path image schema, it consists of: 1. a source, i.e. starting point, 2. a destination, i.e. end point, 3. a path, i.e. a series of intermediate points, and 4. a direction, i.e. from starting to end point. Force Image Schema Motion is an important notion when dealing with the PATH image-schema. 'If we want to move from a source to a goal, we will have to invest some time in the activity and any obstacle may prevent us from reaching our goal'. Motion is caused by some kind of force and, since the concept of motion cannot be understood without the notion of path, it may be postulated that the PATH and FORCE image-schemas are interrelated (Pena,1999). There are many types of force image schema but the study is limited to two types only. Compulsion Schema It comes from the experience of being forced to move by external forces like strong winds, earthquakes or concrete objects like people, bulldozers, etc. When you are pushed, you will feel that you are moving along a way where you do not intend to go if he cannot resist the force. Johnson (1987) states that compulsion image schema consists of elements: an entity, certain force, a path, and directionality. 42 International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 9, Issue 2, 2019 Blockage Schema Sometimes, even though there is some attempt, intent and control to move, there are some obstacles that prevent a moving entity from reaching a destination i.e. any entity or force on the way to a destination will be able to block the further progress of the moving entity (Pena, 1999). Link Schema The first impression and experience of the link expression is that 'we are biologically linked to our mothers by the umbilical cord before we were born'. Thus, the link image schema involves two or more entities which are connected with each other by means of a linking device (Johnson 1987; Lakoff 1987,and Peña 2003). Link schema comprises a number of subcategories as shown below: 1. Human Relations are Connections; 2. Temporal Relationships are Connections; 3. Similarities are Connections Part-Whole Schema The part-whole schema is derived from our experience that our bodies are regarded as wholes which consist of parts. Therefore, head, hand, and neck are parts of the body, and the body cannot be as a whole if it lacks a leg or an arm. Krzeszowski (1993) mentions that a human’s hand can also be experienced as a whole, so fingers, thumbs, joints, and nails are considered as parts of the hand. According to Lakoff (1987), the structural elements of the part-whole image schema comprise 1. a whole, 2. parts, and 3. a configuration. Scale Schema It is a type of schema that relates to the quantitative and qualitative aspects of our experience. It deals with amount More is Up. We can experience it through manipulating objects or through intensity (Johnson, 1987). Cycle Schema We experience our world through cyclic processes such as day and night, birth and death. It begins at certain points, followed by connected events, and ends at the same point that begins. It has only one direction from the beginning to the end. Sometimes it is represented by rise, fall and climax (ibid). Beat Generation Beat is a word used to describe a group of people, mostly poets, who have in common a general rebellion against the restrictiveness and false sheen of post-World-War-II American society and also used to refer to things that have been done to death. While Beat movement 43 International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 9, Issue 2, 2019 or Beat Generation is an American social and literary movement that originated in the 1950s and is centred in the bohemian artist’s communities of San Francisco’s North Beach, Los Angeles’ Venice West, and New York City’s Greenwich Village. Beat originally means ‘weary’ but later also connoting a musical sense as a ‘beatific’ spirituality and derisively called ‘beatniks’ because it expresses their alienation from conventional, or ‘square’, they are adopting uniform style of seedy dress, manners, and ‘hip’ since its vocabularies are borrowed from jazz musicians. It deals with political and social problems including drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen Buddhism. The most frequent artists of this period are: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Gregory Corso, Gilbert Sorrentino, Bob Kaufman, and Philip Whalen (Web Source 1). Allen Ginsberg He is an American poet who was born in June 3, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey, U.S and died in April 5, 1997 in New York; whose epic poem Howl (1956) is regarded to be one of the most significant products of the Beat movement. He was a practicing Buddhist and a self- professed communist. This poet suffered because of his family, his father's death and his mother's mental illness, his brother and sister are also dead, he is alone, thus, the themes of death, loneliness, and sadness are heavily used in his poetry. He suffered from mental disorder disease thus, he entered a mental institution more than once. He also used vocabulary from jazz music because Beat poets are regarded as hipsters for jazz (Web Source2). Data Collection The researchers choose three poems from Allen Ginsberg poetry (Howl, Father's Death Blues, and My Sad Self) as representative poems of analysis and the analysis follows the mentioned model. Data Analysis Howl Containment: Container Image Schema Boxcars is a word that is repeated three times through the following line which represents a container for the best minds, this place is a suitable place for them to disappear from the sight of others. USA boxcars represent a common occurrence for hobos and drifters. Container image schema is represented by boxcars which is a place that contains the best minds, only the poet is regarding them as best minds because they are educated and well known but at the same time they have homosexual orientation, thus they are neglected by society as in: who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night, 44 International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 9, Issue 2, 2019 Another container is, pavement which is the other place or container for the minds and the souls of the best minds, their minds are emptied and the souls spilled out onto pavement.
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